Anti-vaxxers protected by free speech, says Facebook

FACEBOOK will not remove antivaxxer content because people should be allowed to say they are “worried” about jabs, Mark Zuckerberg has said.

The social media website’s founder and CEO said he did not plan to shift its lenient stance on vaccine conspiracies when one is found for Covid-19.

However, his comments prompted condemnation from MPS, who described his stance as “terrifying” and said it risked giving “further oxygen” to “deadly” vaccine fake news.

Facebook has come under increasing pressure since the start of the pandemic over rampant misinformation across the social network.

In an interview with the US website Axios, Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook took down any posts it thought could cause an “imminent risk of harm”.

However, he said he felt people should be able to question the effectiveness of vaccines or express doubts about how they were administered.

The 36-year-old added: “If someone is pointing out a case where a vaccine caused harm or that they are worried about them, it is a difficult thing, from my perspective, to say ‘you shouldn’t be allowed to express that at all’.”

Chris Elmore, chairman of the Allparty Parliamentary Group on Social Media, told The Daily Telegraph: “Mark Zuckerberg’s comments risk giving further oxygen to the deadly, orchestrated, and ill-founded anti-vax misinformation circulating on his platform.

“As so often, instead of leadership and action, Mr Zuckerberg is offering qualification and prevarication. If he does so because of financial concerns, that is shameful; if he does so because he believes it, it’s terrifying.”